by Shelley Cass
Not until the acidic voices of the two guards resumed did we glance at each other in relief.
Kiana shook off her half open shackles and crossed to grab the healer bag again.
“There’s no way we can do this subtly,” she said, pulling her bowl out and continuing as if we had not been interrupted. “We could never get far with the amount of soldiers, fires and sentries here. It’s just impossible. So we’re going to have to make a big fuss to get away.”
She poured a splash of red liquid over the orange paste and the whole mixture in the bowl let out a low sizzling sound. Noal and I viewed it with apprehension while Agrudek looked on in appreciation. “My friends will be ready to help us with the explosives once more,” she added.
“Who are these friends?” I questioned her this time.
She raised an eyebrow. “Suspend your disbelief, and remember the power of the Forest,” she prepared us again. “Now, with that in mind – my friends are birds.”
I guffawed, but she held up a finger.
“Accept it,” she told me bluntly. “You’ll see.” She began to scrape the mix, which had thickened, into balls that she set aside to solidify and dry.
“Just three explosive balls this time?” Noal asked her as she finished.
“These ones do more than just create damage,” Kiana told him. “They won’t leave much behind at all.”
I eyed the line of explosives with mistrust as she stood up, dusting the seat of her pants.
“Time for stage two.” She turned to me and clicked my shackles open now too. “I need you to lift me so I can reach the roof.”
“What are you going to do?” I asked warily, rubbing at my chafed wrists.
“I’m going to make a space for one of my winged friends to get in,” she replied.
“And if somebody notices?” Noal fretted.
“It will be the least of their worries,” she informed him darkly, taking my arms and putting my hands around her hips. “I am ready. I won’t need play acting anymore.”
“Alright,” I said, and stooped down lower to wrap my arms around her knees, lifting her easily so that she reached the roof with her outstretched knife and was able to make quick slices in the canvas.
A square of morning sunlight poured in through the hole and she quickly thrust her hand up to wave it about outside. When she brought her hands down I gently let her slide back through my arms until her feet touched the ground and she stood with her face upturned to the hole she'd created.
“So uh, how long do the birds usually take to reply?” Noal coughed awkwardly.
That was when a tiny blur of brown whizzed at top speed through the hole and flapped around Kiana like a whirlwind, letting out soft, excited peeps before spinning to a halt and landing in a flurry on the dirt.
She smiled down at the palm sized puff of feathers that had just burst so happily into our prison, and then Kiana started to converse with it in another language.
It was unlike any language I’d ever heard. Krall and Awyalkna had essentially the same language with only different accents or phrases. I’d heard that Jenrans and the far away desert people of Lixrax spoke completely unique tongues. But the elegant words Kiana quietly spoke sounded almost magical.
The little bird chirped back whenever she paused, even bobbing its small head when her musical voice stopped. I blinked as if waking from a daze when the beautiful words finished and the bird proudly puffed up its feathered breast and flapped its way back through the hole.
“Amazing!” Agrudek breathed as I stared at Kiana in awe.
“You can talk to birds?” Noal spluttered.
“Hurry, please,” Kiana’s voice was back to normal, and she ignored our astonishment – instead looking at me pointedly until I scuttled over to lift her again.
“Noal,” she said then. “Your job is to hand the explosives up. Carefully.”
He approached the three volatile balls with distrust, passing them up gingerly so that one by one she could push them through the hole. And within moments there had been three thumping sounds above where larger birds were landing on the canvas roof to collect each explosive before swooping off.
“You can talk to birds,” Noal breathed again, shaking his head as he marvelled at Kiana’s compliant helpers.
“What language was it that you used?” I asked. “Because those definitely weren’t bird sounds.”
“I spoke a different language?” Kiana asked mildly, bringing my shackles back over to me. “That’s interesting.”
She calmly settled the chains to be half closed around my wrists again, and unlocked Noal’s as well, not putting hers back on.
“We have only a short time before the first explosion.” Kiana stooped over her medicine bag and pulled out three small tubes with corks tightly stopping them. There was a red liquid like dye inside them that stained the glass.
“When these bottles are opened, if the lids even come off an inch, the red liquid will immediately become a gas with the first touch of oxygen and create a red cloud. The red gas is potent enough to give you cover and the advantage of surprise, but don’t breathe it in. It’ll strip the lungs of anyone who breathes it, so it can eliminate your enemies and yourself if you’re not careful. It dissipates quickly, but only use it if absolutely necessary.” She handed both Noal and myself a finger sized vial, and we copied when she tucked hers carefully into the top of her own boot.
“I’m going to get rid of our guards now, and with the first explosion I’ll collect our weapons. I’ll come for you before the second explosion.”
We nodded, and holding her dagger at the ready, she stalked without a sound to the tent door, disappearing through it like a wraith.
Almost immediately the foul discussion outside was cut off as there was a gurgling gasp from first one guard and then the other.
We didn’t hear their bodies hit the ground, because the first explosion rocked our tent so hard we were thrown backward into the dirt – the force of the blow so great that we lay in stunned heaps wherever we’d been thrown while the tent sagged and billowed.
I sat up and let my shackles fall free as screams of pain rose outside, and I saw that Noal was already helping the stunned Agrudek to sit up too.
“Report!” the General bellowed over the chaos, his voice sounding hoarse in the dusty, hot air.
I noticed dizzily that our tent roof was smouldering, with patches of the canvas glowing faintly orange.
Some time passed before someone managed to respond to the General. “Ten dead over here!” a soldier moaned from a distance away.
Kiana reappeared like an apparition at the limp tent entrance.
“Twelve on this side who won’t live long,” someone else cried out.
A sour taste crept up from the back of my tongue as I registered twenty two men had been wiped out in a single blast. I could hear retching outside, but we picked up our packs.
I noted blood on Kiana’s dagger as she motioned us silently to come to her.
“Three dead on this side!” sounded another alert, closer to where the General’s voice, and his own tent, must have been. “But they’ve been marked by a blade!”
Kiana’s eyes met mine unflinchingly. And the three of us moved to her side to collect our weapons as she turned to lead us out.
Kiana’s sword was already belted at her hip, and her bow and arrows were slung over her shoulder.
“You took …” I heard Agrudek gasp and saw him reach toward where a small, black case was tied at Kiana’s belt.
“The General’s communication globe,” Kiana affirmed as she peered out to check our way. She held her free hand out as if to shelter us then, and the very earth we stood upon roiled as if enraged as the second and third explosions simultaneously tore their way through the camp opposite to where we were.
Noal and I held Agrudek’s frail frame to support him while we were nearly blown backwards ourselves, but Kiana gripped my sleeve, pulling me to move.
My ears w
ere buzzing and my head seemed to throb in time with the ringing, but she drew us out of the now scorched and shredded tent. The ground was still vibrating with shock waves, and my throat burned with the heat that scorched the air.
“Gods,” Noal uttered, as she led us over torn ground, around inert bodies, and through what had become a field of fiery destruction.
Chapter Seventy Five
Dalin
Ash covered survivors stirred in groaning heaps and shouts of confusion echoed all around us. I glimpsed a group of intact soldiers starting to form a panicked gathering, but they hadn’t spotted us through the smoke yet, and Kiana moved us onward quickly, heading for the cover of the nearest trees.
It was not enough time before our absence was noticed though, and we were still running across blasted dirt when we heard the General’s booming voice.
“FIND THE PRISONERS!”
Moments later the sounds of pounding feet signalled to us that more soldiers were recovering, and stumbling after us.
“There! I see th –”
Kiana had turned, drawn her bow and loosed her arrow before the shout had ended, and it was cut short, but too late. The alarm had been raised.
I glanced back to see hulking figures breaking through shrouds of smoke behind us.
“Noal,” Kiana said. “Run ahead. Help Agrudek.”
I followed Kiana’s lead, and turned to face the oncoming soldiers, gripping my sword as Noal half carried Agrudek on towards the trees.
Kiana loosed another arrow at one soldier angling to move around us to attack Noal from the side, and then shot her very last arrow at another soldier who rounded a crater ahead of us.
She slung her bow back over her shoulder and drew her sword as perhaps fifty glowering soldiers charged at us from all sides.
“No formation. We have a slight chance,” Kiana grunted, as they sprinted onward individually.
“Their sheer numbers …” I gasped.
Then Kiana sprang to meet a colossal man who engaged with her immediately. She seemed to dash around him, delivering a series of death strokes without breaking fluidity in movement. He fell quickly, and she engaged with her next foe.
I blankly lifted my sword to parry the blows of the soldier who reached me first. I reacted and blocked and lunged with my blade just as I had always been trained to do. And I was numb as I felt the thick toughness of his stomach quickly give as I lunged forward to spear him with my blade.
He dropped, and I blocked the blades of two other soldiers as they drove down towards my head at the same time.
My life became a blur of curved sabres and I felt a hot bite of a slice opening across the top of my thigh.
Before my foes could take advantage, and quicker than my eye could follow, a straight blade was thrust past me and upward, ringing loudly against the sabres of my opponents.
I glanced back to see Kiana standing behind me, but without pause she’d thrown herself into battle with one of my foes, leaving me to the other.
I heard further fighting a distance away and knew Noal hadn’t made it to the trees with Agrudek. I let my sword fatally bite into my opponent, only to have to raise it again to deflect the sabre of the next soldier.
Kiana was calmly stabbing at a new outraged enemy, who had clearly been wearing his spiked armour when the blasts went off. She was darting about him like a dancer springing from step to step, but she was leaving her deep marks wherever his armour had an opening.
I lunged automatically at my own current foe, and my blade slid under the soldier’s guard. I felt the sluggish resistance that his body at first offered until he crumpled backward, sliding off my sword.
Kiana was gracefully darting about her next opponent, cat-like – leaving neat, precise and life threatening marks on him now too.
Next she made a flashing, neat slice across another man’s belly before he’d even had a chance to engage with her, and as he fell to his knees she spun to decisively slide her blade clean through his throat.
I was amazed to discover my own skill level as I was tested for the first time against true warriors who were not just sparring. Kiana was a blur of action holding a wave of onrushing attackers at bay, and I found felling each man disturbingly easy. But, while Kiana and I rent the air with continuous strokes through flesh and bone, it was clear that we would be overwhelmed.
I heard Noal shout in frustration, and a glance showed me that he was being surrounded.
Kiana caught my eye.
“Deep breath,” she called, and drew her tube of red liquid from her boot, uncorking it. She threw it into the rushing soldiers, and covered her face with the sleeve of her shirt while I hurriedly did the same.
Instantly an explosion of red cloud billowed as if by magic out of the chaos, swallowing the churning group of soldiers while Kiana propelled me away.
We left behind sudden shrieks that quickly turned to coughs, and then to choking rasps as the toxic red mist sounded like it had formed razor blades that, once inhaled, started shredding the lungs of those who had sought to harm us.
Kiana steered me toward Noal and Agrudek, where they were circled by at least fifteen of their own enemies.
Noal still gripped his sword threateningly, and stood over three dead men lying at his feet, but he was outnumbered and they were closing in. Agrudek cowered in terror behind Noal, knowing my brother would not be able to protect him.
An explosion bigger than any that had rattled the Forest took place inside of me, and I found myself sprinting forward and throwing myself at the back of a burly soldier who had just cocked an arrow to eliminate Noal without further fight.
I collided with the man’s back so that he was both impaled on my sword, and thrown forward to drop his bow harmlessly onto the grass.
Surprised at my sudden appearance, the soldiers nearest me whirled to engage, and I fought with a savagery I’d never known had existed within me –finding it easy to get under their guard or around their attacks, or to throw off those who tackled me. Like two swimmers battling across a raging sea to get to each other, I fought my way towards Noal and he fought fervently to get to me.
The roars and ring of steel against steel were deafening, but all I could seem to hear was the pounding of my heart and the breath coming from my own mouth as I deflected and returned blow after blow.
I never noticed that Kiana wasn’t by my side. I only knew that I had to keep fighting, that we had whittled the fifteen of them down to six, and that perhaps we had a chance.
But then I heard the General’s voice bellowing from somewhere close by. I turned my head even as I blocked a slice to my chest to see the approaching, mighty General and ten surviving men flanking him. The soldiers who had been stationed at the cliff top.
The disheartened band that had been fighting to surround and subdue Noal and I quickly drew back with new confidence to encircle us from a safe distance, and my body seemed suddenly bare in the space it had been given, without such pressing and scrambling.
Seventeen soldiers now joined together, and I knew using the red bottled poison was not an option this time, as Noal, Agrudek and I would have no way to escape it ourselves.
I moved closer to Noal and Agrudek at last, and we stood together, our bodies heaving as we gasped for air.
“My King will not easily forgive the massacre of over half of this troop,” the General snarled, shoving his way through the ring of soldiers.
He motioned for two men to step forward with him, and both of them were holding knocked bows at the ready. At their gesture, Noal and I had to forfeit our weapons – and releasing the hot hilt of my blade so that the sword fell to the ground, felt like releasing an important part of my own self.
The soldiers came slowly toward us until there was one standing beside me and one beside Noal, arrows poised.
“In fact,” the General continued to growl as he strode forward and lifted his curved sabre to my throat. “After this, I don’t think Warlord Mainyu would mind if all I brough
t back was your heads. Even if the King demanded he get his hands on you alive.”
I felt the sweat beading on my flesh and tried not to swallow or breathe hard enough to disturb his blade.
“And there’s no one here who will stop me,” he said vehemently, stepping closer to scowl in my face.
“You see, I would beg to differ.” Kiana’s strong voice echoed around the clearing.
The ring of warriors surrounding us murmured and lifted their weapons nervously, peering about themselves for the invisible speaker.
The General’s eyes filled with wild fury as Kiana revealed herself, stepping out into a puddle of sunlight upon the last jutting ledge at the base of the cliff above us.
“You have no power over this,” the General smiled a warped smile up at her, and my throat smarted as the blade wobbled against my skin.
“No. Not from here. Not me,” she called down simply. “But I think you can be stopped by your master if he is shown what you have allowed to happen. You must heel to your master.”
“How will King Darziates know my plan until it’s fulfilled? He is not here to see it,” the General called back confidently, while the warriors about him watched the exchange in growing apprehension.
“I know the word to activate this,” Kiana answered, holding up the dark stone she had told us allowed communication with the Sorcerer of Krall.
“Hurt your valuable prisoners further and I activate the stone. Your King will see your incompetence and your betrayal, and you shall all surely die,” Kiana gazed down at the crowd surrounding us, seeming somehow more in command than the General.
There were outbursts of uncertainty and fear, and the ring of soldiers wavered.
The General frowned at the shifting group in disbelief. “Hold the lines!” he shouted in fury. But his own men watched him with increasing hesitation and doubt.
The General stepped away from me now, his eyes bulging with wrath.
“Shoot her!” He yelled at the men around him, jabbing a finger toward Kiana.
None of them moved.
“Shoot her!” he bellowed again.
Kiana lifted the rock-like globe defiantly. “Engrark.”